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Internet Radio Will Go Silent on June 26th

Posted by Zonk on from the up-against-the-wall dept.

Spamicles writes "Thousands of U.S. webcasters plan to turn off the music and go silent this Tuesday, June 26th, to draw attention to an impending royalty rate increase that, if implemented, would lead to the virtual shutdown of this country's Internet radio industry. In March, the Copyright Royalty Board announced that it would raise royalties for Internet broadcasters, moving them from a per-song rate to a per-listener rate. The increase would be made retroactive to the beginning of 2006 and would double over the next five years. Internet radio sites would be charged per performance of a song. A "performance" is defined as the streaming of one song to one listener; thus a station that has an average audience of 500 listeners racks up 500 "performances" for each song it plays."

3 of 250 comments (clear)

  1. And in other news by MyLongNickName · · Score: 5, Funny

    .... five users wonder what happened to their favorite web site.

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    See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
  2. Ob by edittard · · Score: 5, Funny

    Thousands of U.S. webcasters plan to turn off the music and go silent this Tuesday, June 26th
    Coming up after the break, John Cage's estate launches biggest copyright infringement suit ever.
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    At the bottom of the /. main page it says 'Yesterday's News'. Well they got that right.
  3. SHH to Canada... by flyingfsck · · Score: 5, Funny

    The US stations could set up SSH tunnels to servers in Canada - 'internet underground railroad radio stations'...

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